Should Palm Springs surround the city with license plate readers? Council delays a vote

The debate about whether automated license plate readers are a sensible tool for catching criminals or an unaccountable intrusion into privacy spread to Palm Springs this week, months after leaders in the city of Coachella rejected a plan to install such cameras there.

In Palm Springs, the controversy was triggered by a planned vote on a two-year city contract with a company called Insight Public Safety to install a total of 15 ALPR cameras at seven entry points into the city. Under the proposal, the city would pay Insight about $96,000 to install license plate readers produced by Flock Safety.

They would be the first city-run license plate cameras placed at fixed points in Palm Springs, though the police department has two ALPRs mounted on patrol cars.

After a debate Tuesday night that saw some councilmembers and residents defend the systems while others questioned their use and data protection practices, the Palm Springs City Council voted 3-2 to continue the discussion to the next meeting. In July, a divided Coachella City Council voted not to authorize the Riverside County Sheriff's Department to install about 70 cameras in that city.

Palm Springs' vote was to originally be on the consent agenda, a set of routine items approved in a single vote without discussion. However, Councilmember Ron deHarte asked that the issue be pulled for further discussion.

Mayor Grace Garner and Councilmembers Christy Holstege and Jeffrey Bernstein eventually voted to continue the discussion to the Oct. 12 council meeting after they expressed concerns that unanswered questions remained about how the systems would handle data and that there had not been sufficient notification of the public.

The discussion began with a presentation from Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills, who called the systems an investigative tool that can have a significant impact on crime. Mills said such cameras had been used to find and arrest the suspect in two Los Angeles synagogue shootings when, hours after the second shooting, a camera spotted him in Cathedral City near its border with Palm Springs. (The FBI said phone tracking had already alerted police he was in the area.)

Lt. William Hutchinson, who joined Mills at the meeting, explained the system captures an image of the rear license plate of passing cars and then checks that plate against a state database of wanted vehicles. Police are notified when an image of a wanted vehicle is captured.

Hutchinson said such systems can also deter crime altogether and provide leads to officers. He also touted that the system is used in a growing majority of Coachella Valley cities and allows departments to better coordinate.

Hutchinson and Mills also said police would follow a city policy that allows only trained police personnel to use the camera system and requires the chief of police to sign off before any data is shared with out of state agencies, which can only be done for criminal investigations.

Mills said he would comply with a California law that prohibits sharing data for purposes of tracking or prosecuting people who come to California from other states seeking abortions. Hutchinson also said the readers are not designed to capture images of drivers or capable of facial recognition and that all data is deleted from Flock’s servers after 30 days unless it is downloaded by officers for use in an investigation.

Data security among councilmembers’ concerns

But Holstege was the first to call for the vote to be postponed to the next meeting to allow for more conversation. She said she thought the city’s policy for the systems was good and was not opposed to the concept. However, she said she was concerned about Flock’s system and wanted company representatives to appear before the council and answer questions about how it safeguards the data from getting to unauthorized users and whether it could be accessed by other departments.

“I don’t know Flock and I am not sure I can trust them with our community’s data,” she said.

Holstege also said she was concerned the proposed agreement did not explicitly require Flock to follow the city's policy for the use of the systems. City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger said such a clause could be added to the contract.

Bernstein said he supports the readers and was not concerned about Flock specifically but thought it would make sense to allow for more discussion and input. However, he also said that people who are concerned about data and privacy should consider the amount of data that is recorded by the systems in a modern car.

Councilmember Lisa Middleton said she that while she always tends to be open to more conversation, she was ready to move forward with a vote and encouraged Holstege to ask any questions she had during Tuesday’s meeting.

DeHarte said he too was ready to vote to implement the system, which he thinks would give the police an extra tool to solve crimes many residents are concerned about. He added that a police department town hall held last week about the use of the readers and other high-tech law-enforcement tools had provided sufficient opportunity for residents to share their opinions.

A flier for that Sept. 18 town hall mentioned license plate readers as one of the topics, but said nothing about the proposal to acquire Flock’s system.

Residents also speak out

The vote to continue the discussion until October also came after six residents opposed or questioned the proposal to implement the cameras during the meeting's public comment period.

The speakers cited concerns including their belief that Flock is not accountable for protecting the data, that such systems represent a threat to people’s civil liberties and that they have not been shown to be effective at stopping crime.

One resident, Ernest Ceceña, expressed support for the plan, saying he lives in the Tahquitz Creek Golf Neighborhood, which he said recently held a nearly unanimous vote to install its own Flock system and share the data with police after residents became convinced the department and Flock had sufficient safeguards in place.

Palm Springs police Lt. Gustavo Araiza said it would be the first neighborhood in the city to implement the cameras and share data with police.

Among those who spoke in opposition was Lauren Wolfer, who introduced herself as a board member of the ACLU of the Desert. She said that Palm Springs policy was based on outdated ACLU recommendations created before the launch of Flock. She also called the company's systems "dangerously powerful and unregulated.”

During the meeting, Mills said that while, he understood the council’s desire to further discuss the issue, he hopes for an eventual vote and believes police have done enough to get residents' input and craft safeguards to address their concerns.

Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the city of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and email him at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs could install a network of license plate readers